The increased desire to create relationships with customers. Technology has allowed publishers and brands to reach anyone in multiple ways, but that digital overload has turned off users. Those that are always thinking about what the user actually wants, instead of only what they're selling, will emerge strongest.

AI to organize / enhance our lives: In my field of news/journalism, AI can in some cases "automate the boring stuff", enabling journalists to spend less time on rote tasks and more time on content creation; in other cases, AI can be used to structure and sort the news, both by editors outbound TO consumers, and also for personalization BY consumers. Advances in AI will create new business opportunities, and also new problems and ethical issues (What is the value add of humans when AI can do some tasks as well or better? How can threats to privacy and private data be managed in an era where access to personal data is the engine that powers smart/AI personalization?) These dilemmas of new tech will, of course, also create business opportunities for those who solve them.

Wide(r) adoption of AI as a "productivity" tool-box by non-tech workers without them even noticing it through smooth CX, and also thanks to ethical and job-replacement concerns being slowly, partially but surely relieved; 5G enabling new kind of applications, especially for the long awaited IoT expansion, thought it will likely spilled into 2020; Blockchain ecosystem still trying (but failing) to figure out the right layer between the underlying technologies and the consumers to achieve a wide adoption of applications relying on it; Video D2C wars are going to be the rage, and smart "aggregators" will likely benefit from them, especially those with the largest geo footprint.

2019 is ushering in an awakening across the Media industry to the dangers posed by having ceded control (and revenue) to platforms like Facebook. They're recognizing that they need to reclaim access to their audiences, control over their brands, and their ability to directly monetize before it's too late.

Video content consumption on mobile will continue to grow at exponential volumes, powered by advancing 5G, which will greatly reduce latency and greatly improve the viewer experience. The type of content consumed also will evolve to more short-form content and live streaming video, driven by the massive audience of younger viewers who mostly consume content on social sites and app.